The Case of the Living Corpse
by Bard of Chaos
Summary: What happens when Sherlock is called to investigate the unusual death of a white haired boy? Nothing makes sense in this case, even for Sherlock, and things only get more confusing when the corpse is stolen. But is that really what happened? POSSIBLY DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1

**Hello and thanks for considering this story to be worthy of your time! I hope that I live up to any of your expectations. The chapters on this may be short but I'll try to make sure that I update often. I already have the next chapter written and half of the one after that written. I have to admit that I don't have much planned for this. It was originally supposed to just be a oneshot but I ended up spitting it up into parts. If you have any ideas on where this could go then please tell me!**

**I don't own Bleach or the BBC show, Sherlock. Cumberbatch and Shiro shall rule the world!**

The Case of the Living Corpse

Chapter 1

**Toshiro**

Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro fought the urge to groan as he finished off another batch of Hollows with one swing from Hyorinmaru.

_Why does this task require a Captain to perform it?_ He thought and absentmindedly stabbed Hollow sneaking up behind him in the face. _It is only a checkup on an unusually large amount of souls who died tragically and aren't passing on. A lieutenant could easily take care of this. Why did I have to do it?_

He snorted and used shunpo to reappear in front of another Hollow who he then decapitated with barely contained anger. Of course, he already knew the answer to that question. Despite the hundreds of times that he had shown people that he was deserving of his rank, others still treated him as if he was nothing more than a stronger then usual third seat.

He could still see the Head Captain's face, as serious as ever but he could sense a patronizing tone in his voice when he handed him the assignment and told him that it would be an easy job. Observe the situation, try to fix the situation if it was anything linked to Soul Society, and kill off as many Hollows as he could while he was there. The Head Captain was a stern and serious leader but he did have a side to him that was actually quite caring and protective. He just kept it hidden very well but Hitsugaya somehow seemed to bring that side out in the most discreet of ways. He was usually given some of the easier assignments and was never the very first person to fight on the battlefield. Yamamoto had given him this easy assignment even though there was still so much to do after Aizen's betrayal.

_Aizen._ Hitsugaya growled and froze a particularly large Hollow and smashed it into a million, tiny shards of ice, all the while imagining that it was Aizen's smirking face shattering. What he had done to Hinamori was unforgiveable! She was still in a coma from the bastard stabbing her and he had no doubt that she would be heartbroken when she finally woke up again. That psychopath had manipulated Momo's heart then turned around and shoved a blade into her chest and he did it all with that confident and misleading smile on his face. He would pay for hurting Momo like that!

Hitsugaya lifted his sword to slay another Hollow and found that he was now standing in a formerly forested field that was covered in deep gouges and spikes of ice jutting from the ground. He shrugged and slid Hyorinmaru back into his sheath before returning to where he had left his gigai when he was suddenly attacked by the swarm of Hollows who had felt his high reiatsu. _Extermination of Hollows: done._

_**...**_

Toshiro didn't swear often, it was unnecessary and people gave him weird looks when they saw an elementary student cussing, but he allowed himself one choice four letter word when he saw the police cars and caution tape surrounding the limp body of a white haired child.


	2. Chapter 2

**I don't own anything. Sherlock is hard to write…**

* * *

><p><strong>The Case of the Living Corpse<strong>

**Chapter 2**

**Sherlock**

"Bored… Bored… Bored…" Sherlock droned from where he was draped dramatically over the small sofa. John looked over at him from where he was typing out the newest entry for his blog and sighed.

"It's only been a day since the last case, Sherlock. How on earth are you already bored?"

Sherlock grunted and rolled over to look at John. "It's quite simple actually. The last case was very mundane and wasn't challenging in the least. Added on to that fact it has been exactly fifteen hours and thirty five minutes since that case ended if you determined that the second I knocked the butler out with a brick was when the case ended." He said matter of factly and glanced at the clock on the wall. "Actually, make that fifteen hours and thirty six minutes."

John stared tiredly at him for a moment before closing his laptop and standing up. "That's it. Put on some better clothes, Sherlock. You have to get out of the house."

"Where are we going to?" Sherlock asked, now reading something on his phone.

"I don't know," John said, exasperated as he pulled on his coat. "Maybe we could go get something to eat, or go look at-"

Sherlock cut him off. "How about the park?" He asked, also pulling on his coat and tying the navy blue scarf around his neck.

"Huh? Well, I guess we could-"

"Great. Lestrade sent a case. A dead body was found at Griffin Park." He walked out the door, leaving behind a stunned John and flagged down a taxi.

...

The park was close by and covered with yellow tape and policemen who were still escorting civilians out of the park. Sherlock walked in confidently, completely ignoring the caution tape, and crouched down to look at the body. It was a young boy, probably thirteen at the oldest, and was sprawled across the wet grass. His eyes were closed and if it hadn't been for the stillness of his chest then John would have thought that he was only sleeping. He had shockingly white hair that seemed to defy gravity and stick upwards and when Sherlock opened one of his eyelids the pupils were an unnaturally bright teal color.

"Apparently, he just collapsed. No sign of injuries or even a type of illness. He just up and died." Lestrade told them.

"Well?" He asked Sherlock expectantly. "What have you found out so far?"

"Surprisingly little…" Sherlock said, looking somewhat frustrated at the corpse. "He's a foreigner, the labels on his clothes are in Japanese, but his facial structure hints at his origins being European. His clothes are brand new, barely even worn, and he has only been in London for four hours at the most. He seems to work with his hands often; there is an impressing amount of calluses around his palms. Then there's also one more fascinating tidbit. His hair and eyes are naturally that color."

"What?" John sputtered. "How does a kid his age have white hair? And his eyes! Is that really all that you were able to find out?"

"Yes," Sherlock growled, looking both annoyed and interested. "His clothes are completely generic and since they are new I wasn't able to figure out much else about his lifestyle from them. Where are the witnesses at?"

"Over here but-" Sherlock ignored Lestrade and walked over to the witnesses, a teenaged girl and boy.

"How did he die?" He asked right away.

"What? Are you the police?" The boy asked, confused.

"Yes," Sherlock said, flashing a police badge at them. "Now answer the question, how did he die?"

"He looked really annoyed." The girl spoke up timidly, brushing brown hair out of her eyes. "My brother and I were just walking through the park and spotted him. He was really hard not to notice with that white hair. He was just standing there, looking around."

"Then he looked up all of a sudden. Like he heard something." The boy explained. "He read something on his cellphone and then he started to search though his pockets. It didn't look like he found what he was looking for. Then he just fell over. "

"Was there anyone else in the park at the time?" Sherlock asked, mind working furiously.

"No, we were the only ones there but now that I think about it, it did seem like he looked around to see if anyone else was around before he died. I guess he just didn't see us." The boy said casually.

"More like he didn't think the couple snogging in the trees were watching him." Sherlock said nonchalantly as the teenagers sputtered denials at him.

"Wha- We didn't-"

"You may want to wipe the pine sap off your clothes before you get home. Wouldn't want Mummy to know you're dating the boy they disapprove of." He turned on his heel and walked back to John and Lestrade.

"Sherlock," John growled warningly. "What have I told you about traumatizing innocent civilians?"

"It's impolite, makes people want to kill me, I'll never get any friends if I keep doing it, it's an invasion of their privacy, and many other naggings that I do not pay attention to." Sherlock droned monotonously and Lestrade took one look at John's expression and quickly ran away with the excuse of comforting the victims.

It was a smart choice.

"Sherlock, you-"Sherlock tuned out again, deciding that solving this new case was a much more important use of his mind at the moment. "-why do I even stay around you- and you're not even listening- and just-ARGH!" John stormed off, leaving Sherlock smirking as he followed behind him at a slower pace.

"And that is how it usually ends."

**Later that night…(I couldn't think of anything better…)**

"What!"

John dropped the jar of peanut butter he had been pondering if it was safe to eat when a yell from the living room shocked him. He rushed to the room where Sherlock was standing, still shouting furiously at the phone.

"I knew that the Scotland Yard was filled with a bunch of idiots but this exceeds even my expectations of you! I would have thought that you would have at least have enough sense not to lose it!" Sherlock said condescendingly.

"What? What is it, Sherlock?" John asked, only a little confused considering that it wasn't very unusual for Sherlock to go off at Lestrade for even the slightest of mistakes just not to this level of anger.

"They lost it, John. I don't even want to think of how they did it but they lost it." Sherlock said with unconcealed contempt.

"What did they lose?" John said frustrated.

"The body, John. Somehow, someway, those idiots managed to lose a dead body."


	3. Chapter 3

I don't own anything.

The Case of the Living Corpse

Chapter 3

**Toshiro**

Hitsugaya ducked behind a building as a police car rolled down the road. All he wanted to do right now was open up the Senkaimon and return to Soul Society but sadly for him, the mission was still incomplete because he had yet to discover why there were so many violent deaths concentrated in this area. The first place he had to go was somewhere in the crime underworld of the city but he had to get there first and he had no desire to explain the "soul moving around in a fake body" situation to the Scotland Yard. Therefore, he had to hide every time the police came by until he could find the underworld where there was mostly likely going to be less police cars patrolling the area.

A cold wind blew past him and if Toshiro had been anyone other then himself, he would have shivered. Instead, he reveled in the freezing winter air with nothing to protect his body but his t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He would have liked to have his sweatshirt to cover his white hair but by the time he had been able to steal his body back they had already removed it for evidence.

They had been about to remove his other clothes but a quick burst of angry reiatsu had them running, leaving the rest for the coroner to do. Then it had been a quick matter of slipping back into his body and slipping out of the hospital without being caught on any cameras, all the while cursing at himself for forgetting to bring his soul candy. He had still been angry with the Head Captain and his mood hadn't been helped any by the pitying look that Matsumoto had given him when he told her of his mission. He was barely able to keep himself from storming off into the Precipice World like an angered child. He made a quick stop by Urahara's store for a gigai then he returned to the Precipice World and began traveling to London. He didn't even realize that he didn't have his soul candy until after patrolling London for a few hours.

A foggy feeling in the back of his head grew more noticeable and the captain sighed to himself and started to look around him for a place to sleep through the night. Usually he could make himself stay awake for days at a time when duty called for it but the combination of flash stepping consistently for an hour while traveling to London and the act of tearing his soul from the gigai without any outside help, a task that only a shinigami with high control on their reiatsu such as himself would be able to do, it had all worn his "human" body down. Finding it suitable enough, he sat down on the ground and leaned his back against the brick wall of the building behind him, grimacing slightly at the wet soaking through his pants. He was hidden in the shadows of the building in front of him and he was sure that he would be able to fend off any less than trustworthy characters that would try to attack him during the night. With this in mind, he let himself fall asleep.

**Sherlock**

Sherlock was silent during the taxi ride to the hospital, contemplating different reasons why someone would steal the body and how he or she must have done it. The taxi stopped in front of the hospital and Sherlock got out and quickly made his way to the doors, leaving John to pay the taxi driver and run to catch up with his companion's long legs.

"Why would someone steal the body now?" He asked as they began to jog down the stairs to the morgue in the basement.

"It's possible that the victim was injected with a type of slow working poison that the killer would not like us to find in the body and identify or make an antidote for but that also asks the question of why the killer didn't just get rid of them a more direct way or why the victim went to a secluded section of the park when it was starting to become apparent that he was going to die." Sherlock told him with a determined look on his face.

"You think he knew he was going to die?"

"Of course, the witnesses said that he looked like he knew what was about to happen and before that he went somewhere he thought no one else would be before dying. This would point to suicide if it weren't for the mysteriously disappearing corpse or how he was acting right before he collapsed. Someone about to commit suicide would look depressed or even happy but the only emotions he showed were annoyance. Why would he look annoyed right before he died?"

"Because someone poisoned him?" John guessed.

"Exactly."

"But isn't annoyance too mild of an emotion to have when you've just realized that you are about to die because someone poisoned you? Why didn't he do something in his last seconds?" John sputtered, feeling a little confused. Sherlock glared ahead of him.

"The only person who could answer that is our young John Doe, who those idiots in the Scotland Yard _somehow_ managed to lose." Sherlock snarled.

"Nice to see you too." Lestrade said, walking up to them from the door to the morgue.

John cut off Sherlock before he could make a rude comeback. "Who were the ones dropping off the corpse?"

"Anderson and Donovan," Lestrade replied, ignoring Sherlock's muttered, "Of course."

They walked into the morgue, revealing a frazzled looking Molly and the before mentioned officers standing around an empty body bag.

"Hello freak." Donovan said, looking subdued yet still cocky.

"Actually, I think you would be the freaky one now. Tell me, how does it feel to lose a dead body?" Surprisingly enough, she didn't take the taunt and remained silent.

John shivered. "Why is it so cold in here?" He complained, rubbing his arms through his jacket.

"I don't know," Molly said quietly but she did look puzzled. "I usually keep it somewhat cold so the bodies don't rot but not to this extent and I'm sure I turned the heater on a few minutes ago. Could it be broken?"

"No," Sherlock said, crouched down on the ground looking at something on the wall. "It is working. It's just the air itself that is cold."

"What do you mean by that nonsense?" Anderson sneered at him.

Sherlock stood up, revealing an air vent in the wall that he had been crouched in front of. "It is the only possible explanation. The air coming through the vent is warm but all of the air inside the room is cold and none of the warm air seems to be making a difference even minutes after the warm air started to come in."

He was right. Even now, their breath was leaving small puffs of steam in the air.

"It was normal when we first got here." Donovan said, almost just talking to herself. "It just turned cold all of a sudden after and we decided to leave the rest to Molly."

"Just like that? You left a body behind to be stolen because it got too cold for you?" Sherlock mocked.

"It wasn't that!" Donovan shouted, before looking self-conscious and talking a quieter voice that still conveyed her boiling anger. "It's hard to explain… The cold had a feeling behind it. Like something was angry and we had to get away right then and there. That's what it felt like to me."

By this point, everyone was staring at her and her face was flushed with embarrassment but she glared back at them all.

"Would you say that it felt supernatural?" Sherlock asked, looking contemplative.

"If you're just going to mock me then-"

"I'm not mocking you." Sherlock snapped at her. "Just answer the question."

She looked stunned for a second before nodding slowly. "Yeah, it did feel a little unnatural."

"You mean supernatural. Unnatural is a something that breaks or is against the laws of nature. Supernatural is a force beyond the knowledge of science. There is a difference." Sherlock corrected her but he looked distracted. He turned on his heel and started to walk out the door. "Come along, John."

John stared at him exasperated before he sighed and shrugged apologetically to the Scotland Yard and Molly before chasing after him.


	4. Chapter 4

**I don't own anything.**

**Chapter 4**

**Sherlock**

Sherlock was sitting in the living room by the time John came down from his room the next morning, brows furrowed and three nicotine patches on his arm.

"You're up early. Still thinking about the case?" John asked groggily as he shuffled over to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. On the table, sitting on top of petri dishes and other chemistry tools, was a small scrap of paper. John picked it up, curious as he read the quickly scribbled words written on it.

_White hair, 10-13 years old. Was seen around downtown. Didn't look dead._

"Didn't look dead?"

"Indeed," Sherlock said with a contemplative expression. "My informants don't have a chance to give me very detailed reports. They prefer to keep it short. And that leads to the current predicament that we are in."

_He has that look again…_ John thought tiredly as he drank his coffee and waited for the inevitable explanation, which Sherlock readily delivered.

"One of the more obvious possibilities is that they saw someone moving the body around. Somehow, they managed to make the body look alive at the time. How, I have yet to deduce. Then, of course, there is also the less obvious meanings to it."

John snorted. "Like what? He just woke up and walked away?" He stopped suddenly when he saw the serious look on Sherlock's face. "Sherlock… You cannot possibly be saying-"

"That he made a miraculous and unheard of recovery from death?" Sherlock finished for him. "Of course not. There is an unknown factor in this situation. Something that we have yet to discover, and therefore can't input it into the equation. Think, John! It could be a poison that puts people into a parody of death for a short period of time. Maybe a sickness that the victim had. There is a wide range of possibilities!"

By this time, Sherlock was pacing excitedly and gesturing wildly. John could only blink confused in a half asleep fog as Sherlock grabbed both of their coats, tossed him his which he barely managed to catch before it hit his face, and walked out the door.

"Wha- Sherlock? Sherlock! Come back here, where are you going?" John shouted after him.

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively at as he tied his scarf. "To the city, of course. The informant I gathered this information from was located somewhere near the less legal side of the city at the time. If we are lucky we may even be able to find a good murder."

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><p>"Sherlock, if I get arrested one more time…."<p>

"He apologized, didn't he?"

"Yes, but that's not the point! How do you even meet these type of people?"

"Simple, I proved them innocent."

"How do you know if they are guilty of other crimes then the ones they were convicted for?"

Sherlock deigned that question not worthy of an answer and strode ahead of John who was currently rubbing his wrists and trying to rub away the red marks from where the handcuffs had been.

"My record is going to hell..." John groaned. "What are we doing now?

"Going back, of course."

"What?" John stopped. "I am not going back there! That will make the police sure that we did it."

"Then I'll just flash Lestrade's badge again"

"That won't work every time, Sherlock! Give me one good reason why we should go back!"

**BANG. **A gunshot echoed through the air. Sherlock smirked and turned to run in the direction of the shot, calling back to John as he did so,

"Is that good enough of a reason for you?"

John stared after him, as he tried to wrap his mind around what just happened, before giving up and turning to chase after Sherlock, muttering as he did so.

"Sometimes I wonder if he plans these things…"


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Toshiro jolted awake. There was a scent of death in the air. A fresh, newer death and judging by that ominous feeling to it the death itself was violent.

Sighing, he got up from his spot on the ground. He might as well go and collect the soul. Maybe he could even learn something about the source of these violent deaths. Looking around, he realized there was nowhere to hide his body from a wandering civilian or homeless person. In fact, he could feel the eyes of a nearby homeless person on him right now.

His eyes narrowed. Everywhere he went last night, it had seemed like one of them was watching him. If he had a choice and more time, he might have investigated further into the reason why but right now the lingering soul was more important. Moving further into the shadows and ducking his head down so that his white hair didn't stand out against his dark colored clothes, he flashstepped away.

It only took a few flashsteps to reach the location of the death.

It was a small building, rundown and covered in grime. It looked like it once was a store of some sort but if the broken door and shattered windows were anything to go by then whatever this store was selling now wasn't exactly legal. Cautiously, he stepped through the door, reiatsu at the ready to attack or protect. A crashing sound in the back caught his attention and he ran over just in time to see someone climbing out the back window and running away. Uninterested, he went back to finding the body. Of course, he probably could have caught the murderer but they obviously knew this town better then him and could leave him lost in an alley and he needed to find the soul of the body.

He found it badly hidden under a tarp. The victim was a teen, young and somewhat gangly looking. He had shaggy brown hair and a bullet wound through the heart. Inwardly, Toshiro winced. The shot was went through the side of his heart but it was in a position where the boy had bled out slowly and painfully. Even now, the boy's soul was just appearing. He sighed and readied himself for tearing his soul out of the gigai so he could perform konso. It took a Captain level ability to manipulate reiatsu to the point of severing a soul from the body without assistance but it did tire out the body and took complete concentration.

He had just focused his mind and started the process when there was a sudden movement near the front of the store. It was one of the police, the tall one with the blue scarf that they had called to examine his body. Frantically, he attempted to stop the severing so he could run away but it was too late. As he felt his body falling to the floor, his teal eyes met that of the detective's icy blue.

Then his body hit the floor.


End file.
